Introduction

Hello And Welcome To My Guide!

This guide is designed to give assorted tips and tricks throughout every phase of the game, from champion selection, to the final push to the enemy nexus. I will be updating this whenever I get the chance and have some more tips to share. Also, if you have some that I missed, feel free to share them with me in the comments. While veteran players might find some of these tips to be common sense, my goal when making this guide was to create a database of sorts that can be useful to all League of Legends players. So, without further ado...

Let's Begin

PS: This is my first guide so go easy on me! Dont feed me to Baron Nashor without giving me some constructive criticism first!

A Little More Ado...

Well not quite, there are a few people who I need to thank, because without them this guide wouldn't have been possible.

Thank you

JhoiJhoi, for without her How To Make A Guide, I would have flopped and floundered through the process ending up with a far inferior guide.

My Friends ColbyJak, SinDifferent, Knightshad, and Scynet, for being awesome and carrying me through many games :)

Champion Selection

One of the most overlooked phases of gameplay happens even before the game even begins: The Champion Selection Screen. Often times games are won and lost through the decisions made when choosing your team's lineup. Here are a few helpful hints that will make your team more effective.

1. Create A Positive Attitude

Good teamwork starts in the lobby, and the first and easiest way to promote teamwork is to have a positive attitude. When you enter the lobby, say what types of champions you want to play, and feel free to choose one of them, but DO NOT LOCK IN YET! This way you have indicated to your team your preferred champion, yet are not forcing them to build around you. The best teams that I play on are without a doubt the most flexible ones. Therefore, if you are in the mood to play a jungler, just say "Hey guys, mind if I jungle as ...?" This brings me to my second point...

2. Ask, Dont Command

Let's say that for the sake of example, Annie is your favorite champion, however this game you enter the lobby, and someone has picked Annie. Since he or she is a respectful person who may have read this guide, they have not locked in and have indicated that Annie is the champion that they would prefer to play. Since Annie is also your favorite champion, you could ask "Hey, do you mind if I go Annie?" Theres no telling whether he will agree or not, however if he does, be sure to thank him. The same thing goes with which lane you want to play in, as "Do you guys mind if I go mid?" is much more helpful to your team than to just tell your team "mid".

3.Have a Good Team Composition

This means two things: you and your teammates need to know what a good team composition is, as well as choose champions to fit such a composition. This does not mean, however, that there is only one "right" composition or that if your team doesn't have a good composition that you will lose. One of the tricks to having a good composition is being hard to counter. To explore a good team composition, lets compare two sample teams:

Team One has a horrible Team Composition. Since they are all relatively squishy and all use ability power (AP), they are very easy to counter. If their opponents get any items with magic resist (MR), Team One will have a very tough time winning. Team Two however, has a much more diverse set of champions. It is this variety that makes them extremely hard to counter. Generally speaking, I find that there are three general team compositions that work in the current North American Meta:

These team compositions, while seemingly basic, can make or break a team. The trick is to try to fit a team composition that is hard to play against.

As The Game Loads

Yes, there are actually a few things to do while the game loads! This is also the last appropriate time until after the game is over to get a beverage, go to the bathroom, ect, but there are far more useful things to do!

1.Check Out The Enemy Team's Champions!

This is a crucial step to the success of you and your team is to anticipate what the enemy will build their champions like and in which lane (or jungle) they will spend the first phase of the game in. This means that, by the end of the loading period, you should have a good idea of who you will be facing in lane, or at least have narrowed it down. Barring any bizzare team compositions (think team one from above) this method is accurate about 80% of the time.

2.Know The Enemy's Summoner Spells!

Trust me, this is one of the most overlooked aspects of a team. From the summoner spells you can typically tell who is jungling, by looking who (if anyone) has Smite. NOTE: DO NOT ASSUME THAT A TEAM WITH NO SMITE HAS NO JUNGLER, CERTAIN CHAMPIONS LIKE Shaco CAN JUNGLE WITHOUT Smite. From the spells, you can also usually tell what lane someone is in. If they have Teleport often they will either mid or solo top. If they have Clairvoyance it is usually safe to assume that they are playing in bottom lane. Heal is one to be careful of. While typically a support spell, this spell can be used effectively in every lane. It is EXTREMELY important to know who has heal on the enemy team ESPECIALLY if you are in their lane. It is amazing how many times I have seen myself and others use heal to bait people into tower dives. Basically, if you are unsure if their heal is available or not, don't dive them unless you are extremely certain you can kill them and survive if they heal.

First Two Minutes

Congratulations! You have made it into a game and, assuming you've read this guide, your team composition and attitude are both superb. Immediately upon entering the game there are a few things that you are going to want to do...

1.Buy your starting items

Very simple, right? Why am I even telling you to buy items? Here's Why: your build should never be static. For the sake of example, you are playing as Veigar Mid against a Karthus. You have Ignite and Flash and he has Teleport and Flash. You normally buy a Doran's Ring to start, so thats what you get, right? WRONG It depends on who you are laning agaist. If you are confident in your ability to avoid Lay Waste then you can proceed with a Doran's Ring. If you are less confident at dodging his spells, consider starting with Boots of Speed and three Health Potions This way, you have more sustain against a champion that can teleport back to lane, as well as a bit of assistance dodging Karthus's skillshots.

2.Say Hello To Your Opponents

It is always appropriate to say GLHF (Good Luck, Have Fun). This is just plain old good sportsmanship. This is also the time to compliment any cool skins you see :p This just serves to promote a positive game environment, as opposed to the rage-fests which often grace tribunal cases.

3. Position yourself

This all depends on who you are, who you are facing, and who your lane partner is (if you have one). Assuming you bought your items in a timely fashion here is a general idea of what to do:

If you are mid, it is best to stand by your tower until minions spawn, just to be safe.

If you are in a solo lane, it is best to stand at the very far back of the bush close to your tower. If the enemy enters the bush, retreat to tower. This way you know if they are coming, and that they arent hiding in the bush.

if you are in a duo lane it is probably best if you wait in the farthest back position in the brush closest to your tower until the other person arrives. Then, you should analyze who your opponents are and adjust accordingly.

4.Be Aware of Problematic Abilities

No matter what lane you are in, there are a few things to be aware of in the champion(s) that you are facing

Stealth: Any champion that could be stealthed walking around your bush could spell doom for you in the event of an inital skirmish. If this champion, say Teemo, is stealthed in the bush that you are standing in, he has the potential to completely surprise you and give his team the upper hand. Solution: If you are worried about stealted enemies creeping up on you before the minions clash, stand by your tower rather than invest in vision wards as starting items.

Deadly and Revealing Skillshots: There are tons of them and chances are you will be up against a champion who has a skillshot that can reveal your presence to the enemy team. The most problematic are Morgana's Dark Binding, Dr. Mundo's Infected Cleaver, and Nidalee's Javelin Toss. Not only do these have the potential to do serious damage, they reveal your presence to the enemy (the impacts make noise), and two of those three have a crowd control effect (CC) that goes along with them. If you face an opponent in lane with one of these, wait in the furthest spot in the bush closer to your tower until the minions clash. From there you can use minions as a barrier.

Laning Phase

1.Know Your Opponents

One of the biggest problems I see player on summoner's rift is that they dont know how to lane effectively depending on the champion they face. During the laneing phase, it is important that you know whether the champion is a one to "hide" against or one that you need to make "choose".

In this sense, "Hiding" means staying in the minion wave, and using minions as cover to avoid skillshots. This makes skillshots hard if not impossible to land. This works well against someone like Nidalee and Dr. Mundo, who both have powerful ranged skillshots. By standing in the wave, it makes landing a cleaver or javelin extremely difficult.

On the other hand, there are champions who you need to "choose" between you or the minions. This goes for someone who has skillshots that go through multiple enemies, like Caitlyn, Graves, or Sivir. Against this type of champion, stay away from the minion wave so you dont let them hit more targets with their skillshots. If you were to stand in the minion wave, a Boomerang Blade would hit both you AND the minions. If you were standing away from the minions, Sivir would have to choose between which she wanted to hit.

There are a few champions which either fit into both categories whcih make laning diffucult whether you are in a minion wave or not. A champion that fits into both categories is Morgana. What makes her hard to lane against is that she has a ranged skillshot in Dark Binding, and an Area of Effect (AOE) spell in Tormented Soil. This means that no matter where you stand she can hit you with one of her spells. In this situation in which movement speed is more effective than using minions as a shield.

Finally there is a category of champions which dont fit into these categories. This means that they have only targeted abilities, such as Ryze. Because Ryze only has targeted abilities, minions are useless as a shield. This means that standing in the wave wont do much besides mess with your movement.

2.Understand The Role You play

While this is crucial in all aspects of the game, knowing your role is necessary to lane effectively. This means that if you are a carry like Sivir or Ashe, you should be last-hitting (more on that in a moment). If you are playing as a support champion such as Soraka or Sona, you should be healing and otherwise helping your lanemate. While I am generally not a fan of the "0 Farm Support", you should understand how farming (or lack thereof) should be part of your laning. If you are playing as a tank, you should be doing your best to prevent your lane partner from taking damage. This does not mean blindly run into every skillshot headed in their general direction, but if Morgana shoots Dark Binding at your ally who is about to die, it is your job to intercept said skillshot.

3.Learn To Last-Hit

One of the most crucial elements of laning effectively as ANY champion is to learn to time your attacks so you only hit minions once, killing them on the "last hit". Last hitting pushes a lane much slower than general farming, since you let minions do most of the work. The key here isn't quantity of minions, so much as it is efficiency. Here are some benefits of last-hitting.

You are much safer from enemy junglers because your lane isn't pushed to the enemy tower

You set up ganks more effectively for your own jungler (or roaming teammates) because the enemy is not pushed too far back.

You personally kill a higher percentage of the minion wave, resulting in more efficient farming

You are able to harass in between last hitting

4.Know Your Goals

Contrary to popular belief, the goal of laning is not to destroy the enemy tower before they get to yours. Your goal may vary slightly depending on your champion style, however in general your goals while laning are:

Killing Your enemy if possible Note: It is probably better for you to go 0/0/0 and have a lot of farms than to go even, say 3/3 and have a low amount of minions farmed.

Think of it this way: An Ashe that kills a tower at 5 minutes in is certainly a good player, however killing a tower early does not necessarily contribute to your team's success AFTER laning. On the other hand, and Ashe with 150+ minion kills in 20 minutes can help both while laning, and in the teamfights that will follow.

Mid Game & Teamfights

The most important stage (in my opinion, of course) in the game has arrived: Mid Game. Mid game generally signals the beginning of teamfights, and the end to laning in a traditional sense. Here's a few hints to help you and your team excell during the Mid Game Phase.

1.Know Your Goals

Your teams priorities, for the most part, are as folows:

Kill Enemy Champions

Take Out Towers

Acquire Dragon When Available

While certain champions, such as Nasus benefit from farming during the middle of the game, the majority of the action will be centered around teamfights. This phase is crucial to winning the game. If your team manages to win a few teamfights during this phase, it will give your team the edge it needs to secure victory.

2.Don't Overstay Your Welcome!

This basically means that if you are in a relatively unprotected area, say pushing an enemy tower, it wouldn't be a good idea to stay there too long. If your goal is farming, go in, steal a wave or two, and then get the heck out before the enemy team hunts you down. You can also use this to your advantage, however. Nothing looks more appetizing to the enemy than a lonely carry farming in the middle of a lane. Have your teammates close by and lead the enemy into the trap. Your friends jump on them from bushes or the jungle and before you know it you will be dancing atop their corpses! Of course, this is a VERY risky manuever, and should NEVER be attempted late game, as an ace can lead to the enemy doing a number of unfortunate things to your base.

Late Game

Late game has finally rolled around, so everyone is level 18 and starting to finish up their builds. This is also the time of the game where your team composition will matter most. So around this point in the game...

1.(ALMOST) NEVER GO ALONE

Seriously, wandering off on your own is probably one of the worst things to do in the late game. Stick with your team, you are much stronger that way. There are, of course, a few exceptions"

You are defending a tower from a split pusher/backdoorer. Only go alone in this situation if you are sure you can kill them, otherwise it would be smart to bring some help

The entire enemy team is visible defending base. This is usually the time of game when the enemy has more than one inhibitor dead and are trying to keep you out. It is ok to go alone in this situation, but even in this case pushing towers solo isn't wise.

2.Your Goals Are Still Primarily Champions

Even if you have a wonderful backdooring champion like Master Yi or Shaco, I would advise against it unless the rest of your team can keep the enemies occuppied. This means that basically you are best off pushing after a successful teamfight (more on which lanes to push in the Common Misconceptions Section!)

3.Let The Enemy Come To You

If both teams are in a similar situation with most if not all of their inhibitor turrets down, you are much better off waiting in your base and letting the enemy come to you. You are much better equiped to fighting on your home turf than on theirs. This is especially useful if Baron Nashor is not up, so there is no incentive to just take buffs and clear your jungle. Yes, this tactic will lead to longer games, however patience is often the key to winning the game. Recklessly going for the enemy base is risky because unless you know exactly where the enemy is, they could be just around the corner from your base! Trust me, if it comes down to either an extra 15 minutes, or a luck-of-the-draw base-race, I would take the longer game every time. Plus, you get more IP for it anyway!

Dragon and Baron

Say it once, twice, and three times to get it in your head: GLOBAL GOLD WINS GAMES Baron and Dragon Nashor are both excellent sources of gold, for the entire team, and Baron Nashor provides an often game-changing buff. While most carries can solo dragon from mid game and later, there are certain times in particular to get them.

1.Slaying The Dragon

Dragon spawns initially at 2:30, and respawns 6 minutes after it is killed. If you have a jungler, typically he will be in charge of warding and killing dragon during the laning phase. Bottom lane should also assist with both tasks, especially if the enemy has a jungler. As with most activities, there is a right time and a wrong time to kill dragon.

When To Kill The Dragon Laning PhaseLate Game

When your jungler is at a level when he can take the dragon down alone

When the enemy bottom lane is dead or has just recalled

After a Teamfight

When most if not all of the enemy team is visible and not near the Dragon Camp

As a general tip for Dragon and Baron, as well as Blue and Red buffs, it is wise to say in the chat log when they will respawn. For example, you kill dragon at 22:15. Since The Dragon respawns 6 minutes later, in chat you should write "dragon 28:15", meaning that dragon will be up then and will be available for either team to snag.

2.Killing Baron Nashor

Unquestionably the best time to kill Baron Nashor is when the entire enemy team is dead and your team is at sufficient strength to take it down. Since games are rarely this convenient, your best bets are to observe these general rules

Keep Baron warded after the enemy team hits around level 16. This is just a good rule of thumb in general, however in ranked games teams may go for baron buff much earlier so keep your eyes peeled!

Keep your eyes opened for when more than three enemies are missing for more than 10 seconds, assuming they arent dead.

If you can take out an inhibitor, your ability to secure baron is greatly increased, as the enemy now has to have at least one defender or risk damage to their nexus turrets.

NEVER GO TO BARON ALONE!

Always ward the bushes behind the Baron Camp to alert for any possible steal attempts.

Jungling

In my time playing LoL, I've seen a wide range of junglers. From ones who would make excellent ranked players, to people who didn't know how to smite their way out of a paper bag. Now I won't go and pretend like I'm a jungle master, however there are a few tips that summoners need to pick up on in order to be an asset to their team.

1.Play a Bot Game First

The first time you jungle a champion, ALWAYS do so in a co-op vs ai game. This way there are no consequences if you do poorly, and you won't have a frustrated team yelling at you to uninstall your game. Also, this can be used to refine your route and build.

2.Have A Plan AND A Backup Plan

Often times I see a jungler get invaded, and their initial buff stolen (be it blue or red). This leads them to either A)Abandon the jungle and lane B)Flop Flounder and Feed or C) Attempt to complete their jungle route unsuccessfully. This doesn't have to be the case! For example:

When I jungle, typically I use Tryndamere (who by the way is a pretty good starting jungler). My preferred route is leash red, wraiths, wolves, golems, back, and blue buff goes to mid if they are available, otherwise I take it for the experience. If my red buff is stolen, I go wraiths, wolves, ENEMY RED and go from there. This way I am not that behind in levels and they are set back as much as I am. If my blue is stolen, I simply clear the rest of the camp if they were kind enough to leave the lizards and laugh a bit, as I am an angry barbarian and therefore need no mana!

3.Keep Your Teammates Informed Of Your Activities

This can be as simple as, "wolves then top", or as detailed as, "I'll try to steal red if I can and then check their golems." One way or another try to keep your teammates in the know, ESPECIALLY when you plan to gank their lane. For one thing, it gives your ally time to allow the enemy to push in order to set up the gank.

How to Survive Getting Ganked

You have for one reason or another pushed your lane too far, and now one or more members of the enemy team are coming to exact their revenge. Ideally you would have wards to give you an early notice if you are about to get ganked, however in this worst-case scenario you do not.

1.Use The Brush To Your Advantage

As soon as you see the enemies coming to gank you, head for the nearest patch of bushes in order to disrupt any targeted abilities they have. From the brush, quickly plan your escape route. The best destinations to head are, in this order:

The Nearest Friendly Tower

The Nearest Teammate Capable of helping (don't lead enemies to allies with low health)

Your Jungle

The Enemies' Jungle

2.Be Creative

If the enemy has enough sense to gank you if you are out of position, they will probably know that your primary destination will be your tower. This being said, if you believe you can make it your tower, that should be your first choice. Otherwise, just head to your nearest avaliable teammates and ping once or twice to get their attention. As this is a worst case scenario, your enemies have blocked your escape to your tower. This means that to get to your allies, things will probably be more complicated than simply running. Take unusual paths in order to throw enemies off your trail (works especially well in your own jungle, as the enemy can be easily lured into a trap). If you think the enemy expects you to go left, go right, even if it means it takes longer to get to your team. Creating a little extra distance can keep you alive without needing to burn flash.

3.Know When To Laugh In The Face Of Physics

Some players have been graced with abilities that, contrary to the laws of physics, allow them to pull off some pretty interesting escape moves. Here are a few abilities that, for some reason, allow you to go through SOME walls.

This can include pretty much every cc with the exception of supressions. All four suppress abilities in the game ( Infinite Duress Nether Grasp Impale and hyper-kinetic position reverse) all are ultimates and all take time to use. If your goal is damage or dragging the enemy into your team, then reach for these. If, however, your goal is escape (as is the case here), you should avoid abilities that take time to cast beyond half a second.

You wont have to run every time you get ganked. If you think you can fight the enemies and win, heres a few ideas.

5. Target The Jungler/Roamer/Ganker

For the sake of example, the enemy jungler, Udyr, is ganking you and your friend Caitlyn and Alistar while you push the enemy Vayne. If you believe you can take them out, ALWAYS FOCUS THE JUNGLER. This person is the most unpredictable on the enemy team, so in order to minimize the danger when they gank you and your teammates, kill them first! This goes double if the enemy jungler has buffs!!! If you and Alistar focus vayne, you kill an enemy which is always nice, however if you kill Udyr then you kill the most hazardous member of the other team, as well as possibly acquiring the crest of the ancient golem or the blessing of the lizard elder.

6.Understand The Concept Of A Revenge Gank

Basically, if your jungler ganks bottom lane successfully, this might allow bottom lane to push to the enemy tower. If that is the case, be wary for the opposing jungler (if there is one) to "revenge gank". Basically, when you are ganked just be aware that if you push you may end up with an unfriendly enemy in the bushes.

Tips for Countering Pesky Stealthed Champions

Invisible Enemies giving you a headache? Try some of these to ruin their day!

1.Watch the minions

This works especially well in the laning phase. If the enemy minions are walking towards you while you are in a bush there are one of three possibilities:

You just attacked something while in the bush

The enemy has warded the bush you are currently residing in

There is a stealthed enemy who is functioning like a ward for his minions

If you havent just attacked from inside the bush, then your best bet is to go to one end of the bush and throw a skillshot through it. If you hear the impact noise, then bingo! You have found that pesky stealthed champion. If your skillshot misses, then you can be farily sure that it is just a ward. NEVER let your guard down though, you never know when a pesky Twitch is about to make your day smell a lot worse.

This role is best filled by an offtank, preferably one with the ability to chase enemies. This champion will basically be your eye (you generally only need one until late game) and your goal is to protect him. Why not a support? Supports are generally squishy and are usually more for healing and sustain than dueling. This being said, even if your support could see Evelynn right next to her, she probably wouldn't be able to take her down. "Well," you say, "why not the tank then? He is plenty durable and will present in all of the fights." Yes, tanks are ok to have as oracles because they have the durability to survive teamfights, but like the support, they lack the damage to kill the stealthed enemies themselves. You want the best of all worlds: someone that wont be the prime targets (squishy carries), someone who has enough durability to survive a fight, and someone who has enough damage and chasing ability to track down and kill that pesky Eve.

Common Misconceptions

These assorted tips have to do with many aspects of the game, however I think it is more important to keep them all together in one giant misunderstood section. These mostly deal with team-wide strategies/gameplay as opposed to individual performance, so if you are having trouble with an element of your gameplay specifically, this isn't where to look. Note: These are things that I have noted during my gameplay in LoL, not things that have been studied or proven by high elo players. In general, however, these will serve to clear up some common mistakes.

1.Mid is NOT the most important lane

I mean this mostly for mid and late game, as the importance of lanes early are all fairly similar (although having a successful solo vs duo top is a great sign). In most games that I play, the teamfights leading up to the final push to the nexus occur in mid. This means that the top and bottom lane towers are largely forgotten after about 30 mins into the game. That means that mid must be more important, right? Nope. Think about it this way. Since most teamfights happen in the middle lane, wouldn't it be beneficial to kill another lane's inhibitor first? Heres a scenario to try to get the point across:

Late game rolls around and the scores and tower are rather even. Your team wins a minor teamfight and decides to push the advantage to the enemy's Bottom Lane Inhibitor Tower. You and your team successfully destroy both the tower and inhibitor. After reorganing for the next fight in mid, the enemy team realizes that, since your teams super minions are pushing bottom, they can't leave it undefended, or risk damage to their nexus towers. Therefore they must send someone to defend bot, or otherwise force a fight there, which unless they send very pretty invitations, you should not accept. Bing Bang Boom you get a truckload of advantages:

Teamfights you have are either 5vs4 in your favor or the enemy's nexus towers are taking damage

Baron is WAY easier to take due to the enemy having to commit resources to plugging the hole

The enemy's pushing power is extremely diminished EXCEPT IN BOTTOM LANE.

That last bullet is what makes top and bottom WAY more important than mid. If your team chose to destroy mid first not bottom, then the enemy team wouldnt have to adjust as much, since most teamfights happen in mid anyway. They would most likely already have someone n mid lane to hold off the minions, are are also closer to Baron Nashor in the event one of your teams goes for it.

2.There Is No Unstoppable Champion

If you browse the forums on the League of Legends website, you will often find frustrated players complaining about how every champion is overpowered, or how if the enemy team happens to have a certain player, their team is doomed. THIS IS NEVER THE CASE. While this isnt as helpful in blind-pick as it is in draft and ranked games, there is a counter to EVERY champion. Here are a few common champs touted as being unstoppable forces:

Always remeber: There are counterpicks to every champion, and there are counterpicks to the counterpicks! Say LeBlanc is giving you some trouble. Taking a tanky champion with a shield will go a long way to laning against her. Some good choices are Morgana, Nocturne (as long as he is a bit tanky), and Maokai. The thing is, there are counterpicks to those champions as well. Talon is a great counter to Morgana, Lee Sin is excellent against Nocturne whether in lane or in the jungle, and Udyr is as good a counter to Maokai that there is. If you are having trouble countering a specific champion, check out Slappiz's Counterpicking Guide

sight ward3.Warding Isn't Just For Supports

Since the game is split into the laning, and then non-laning phases of the game, lets split this up accordingly. For the laning phase, the support should be warding their lane, there is no question about that. The other member of the lane should prioritize their build. However, what happens if you have no support in your lane? Or if you are in a solo lane? or if you are the jungler? It's not rocket science here people! Get the wards and use em! Calling MIAs is a key part in playing as a team, however in NO WAY does it replace warding in any stage of the game.

Mid and Late game EVERYONE SHOULD BE WARDING!! I don't care if you are getting an Infinity Edge. I don't care if you are the carry. I don't care if someone is beating on your door with a million dollar check, YOU GET WARDS!! Ok, now that my feeble attempt at humor has passed... Seriously though, past the time when laning is over, if you have room, always keep a ward or two on hand. You never know when you will need one. If warding isn't your strong suit, I would strongly reccommend you read Pangalot's Warding Helper, as I can guarantee it WILL save your life.

Surrendering

For one reason or another, the game is not going well for your team, and the option of surrender is starting to sound pretty appealing to you or your teammats. Remember: There is a time and place for everything, surrendering included. I'm not one of those "fight to the bitter end" people that refuse to surrender even in the most hopeless of circumstances, nor am I the type that spams the surrender vote every time the enemy kills me. Here are a few guidelines to think about when considering surrender.

1.Why Are You Considering Surrender?

You might be thinking: "Duh, Eagles, we are losing!" Yes, but in what sense? Are you down kills? Towers, perhaps? Down Teammates, even? Think of it this way: People can come back from most any situation, especially since the Hecarim Patch when Riot gave more gold & exp for killing higher leveled opponents. This being said, if you honestly think that there is no conceivable way to claw back and win, then surrender is an option. For me, here are some cases where surrender is acceptable.

When a teammate leaves the game, and you are getting owned. Note: having a teammate leave is not as much of a death sentence as people think, I have won games, albeit few (probably like 20-30) when down a player, so don't go surrendering just 'cause.

When a teammate is clearly and explicitly trying to ruin your team's game. I don't mean a player going 0/3 while laning, I mean the people that are "mid or afk" or "solo top or feed". If you have a situation like this, let the other team know and explain the situation. If they are decent people they should understand and report them post-game.

If a lane is feeding the enemy to the point of morbid obesity. Again, im not talking a lane going 0/3 or something like that, thats easy to overcome late game. I'm talking major fast food obesity-binge like a lane having 10 deaths in 20 mins.

2.Can The Game Be Won?

Don't assume a game is hopeless. Consider this, one game I was getting trashed as Dr. Mundo in a 1v2 top and was 0/4 in the first 12 minutes. To make a really long story short, I ended the game at 16/4. Just becasue the situation seems hopeless doesn't mean that the game cant be won. Something as simple as switching lanes or sticking together can make the difference.

3.Talk it over with your team

This can be anything from a discussion of tactics to a simple "you guys think it's gg?" One way or another, I find it kind of frustrating when people just start a surrender vote without even discussing it as a team. Also, if theres one thing that bugs me (and probably my teammates too) more than people that complain on the LoL forums about being banned is when people can't...

4.Avoid Becoming A Negativity Fountain.

Yep, QQers, as they are commonly called, are probably the my least favorite kind of teammate. Being negative doesn't influence your gameplay positively in any way shape or form, so quit it! No, not the game! The negativity!! GAH! Basically, do your best to avoid the following:

Surrender-Spamming

Whining

Throwing Teammates Under the Bus (ie blaming them for the game)

And above all else... DO NOT COMPLAIN IN ALL CHAT! Nothing ruins a good game like teammates fighting each other for all to see. In the end, they both probably report each other and look equally bad.

5.Have Grace, Even In Defeat

It is late game, and you and the enemy are very evenly matched. A final fight will decide the outcome of the contest, and unfortunately, your team comes out on the losing end. They are moving towards your nexus and will certainly destroy it before your team respawns. Have grace in this defeat, meaning that basically that if your team and the enemy's have had a hard fought game that was decided in one final clash, don't surrender if you lose the battle. Be honest with yourself and your teammates, if the enemy deserved the win, don't surrender to spite them. If the enemy has earned killing your nexus, then let them rather than surrendering.